


Variety is the Spice of Life

by Sumi (SakanatoAi)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Chipotle, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Burritos, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, Victor hungers for the burrito, Yuuri works at Chipotle, poorly constructed burritos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 11:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11508711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SakanatoAi/pseuds/Sumi
Summary: Yuuri works at Chipotle. Victor is an unsatisfied office worker with a hunger for burritos.Burrito boy smirked, “Back again so soon.” It wasn’t a question. “Same order?”Victor cleared his throat. He tugged at the collar around his neck. “Sounds great.”





	Variety is the Spice of Life

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired in part by This post. If you're not familiar with the tale of "Dear Guy Who Just Made My Burrito" at this point in your internet career, I suggest you go and make yourself familiar with it.
> 
> Side note, thanks to commenter CorpusHypercubicus for their brief but valuable insight into life as a Chipotle employee, I have made a few changes/edits to this chapter for the sake of accuracy. I am, in fact, not an employee at Chipotle, or any similar type of dining establishment, so if there are any other points that are incorrect please feel free to let me know in a comment and I'll try my best to get those corrected.

The red _Do Not Walk_ light blinked at Victor from across the street.

He tapped his foot impatiently as the midday sun beat down on him from above. He was sweating and uncomfortable in his black slacks and dress shirt. Cars whirred past Victor—with light glittering off the steel and glass—each passing vehicle offered a brief moment of a breeze, smelling of sun-scorched tar and leaking oil.

Victor glanced down at his watch—his lunch break was ticking away before his eyes.

The last few cars sped past, before traffic came to a gentle halt, and the stream of moving vehicles changed direction. The image of a walking figure flickered onto the display and Victor ambled across the blazing pavement.

His destination was within sight—the Chipotle store located one block from his office was his usual reprieve when he needed a break from the office and a quick bite to eat.

He walked through the door of the store and into the relief of an air-conditioned room and the smell of cooking food.

The restaurant was bustling, with a line extending from the counter and around the side of the room. All he could do was hope the line moved quickly enough for him to grab his food and make it back to his office before the end of his break.

Employees in the back seemed overwhelmed by the influx of lunchtime customers, and rushed about refilling ingredients and calling out to each other.

As the line grew shorter, Victor glanced ahead of him to watch the employees assembling orders. Three people in their early twenties sidestepped around each other awkwardly and plastered fake-looking smiles on their faces as they scooped ingredients onto tortillas and into bowls. One of the workers in particular caught Victor’s attention.

The man wore the black shirt of his uniform, and strands of his messy hair peeked out from under his matching black cap. His round cheeks were flushed a light red and his eyebrows were pinched together as he concentrated on the order in front of him.

Victor raised one eyebrow and sat back on his heels to take in the view—he couldn’t deny his immediate attraction to the stranger.

As the line continued to shorten, Victor observed the pattern of employees finishing up orders and then returning to the front of the counter to help the next customer in line. He was hoping to be helped by the dark haired man, but he wasn’t sure if luck would allow him to be paired with the Chipotle employee of his choice.

When only two people remained in front of him in line, Victor panicked—the attractive stranger had just began the first step of building someone else’s burrito, and it seemed unlikely he would be finished in time to help Victor with his order.

Quick thinking, and his tendency towards impulsive decisions, resulted in Victor fishing his cellphone from his pocket and feigning to take an important call. He stepped back from his place in line and waved two other customers in front of him with a wink.

He used his palm to cover the microphone of his cell phone and smiled at the strangers. “I really should take this—please go ahead of me.” In his new position he tried his best to chatter convincingly into his cellphone while keeping his gaze locked on the cute burrito boy in front of him.

His new spot in line seemed promising. He ended his fake phone call and slipped the phone back into his pocket. The customer in front of him stepped forward to have their order taken, and burrito boy headed in Victor’s direction.

“What can I get started for you?”

Victor leaned forward on his toes to peer at the other man over the top of the glass partition. he made a show of flicking his eyes back down to find a name badge, but his eyes found nothing except the Chipotle logo printed on the fabric. Burrito boy gave a tentative smile. Both men stood in place for a moment, exchanging awkward glances, until the customer behind Victor cleared their throat.

“Oh, uh…” Burrito boy startled.

Victor interrupted, “I think I’ll go with a burrito today, and brown rice, please.”

“Sure thing.” Burrito boy slipped a tortilla into the steamer. Victor thought he saw the red tint on his cheeks darken slightly—he wasn’t sure if it was a blush, or just a flush from the constant running around the he had been doing.

He watched as the tortilla was removed from the steamer and a helping of rice was added off to the side. The other man glanced up at Victor, his cheeks were definitely reddened, he opened his mouth to speak—but there was hesitation.

Victor spoke, “With chicken please.”

Burrito boy nodded and reached into the chicken container with a gloved hand. He sprinkled the portion of protein beside the small pile of rice.

Burrito boy's approach to burrito building was a little unusual—Victor watched as each ingredient was added to his burrito, in a small pile or blob, off to the right of the previous ingredient. When the employee plopped a dollop of guacamole at the far end of the burrito, and then proceeded to begin rolling the tortilla, Victor had to bite back his words. Did he not understand the proper burrito building procedure?

He slid Victor’s food over to the employee at the cash register, and glanced back up with a timid smile. Victor slipped his credit card from his wallet to pay for his food. As burrito boy turned to walk back to the start of the counter, Victor called out, “Um, thank you!”

The man laughed and waved in his direction before turning his attention towards the next person in line.

The walk back to the office felt strange. Usually, Victor would spend the walk with feelings of dread—the return to his claustrophobic cubicle, the mind-numbing hours remaining in the workday, and the possibility his boss would call him into a senseless meeting at any moment—but today, he walked back with a smile on his lips and a flutter in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t remember the last time he had looked at someone and felt a spark of attraction like that.

Victor slipped into his desk and prayed his boss and coworkers were busy enough to keep them distracted while he ate his lunch.

The desk itself was small, cluttered with papers, and just short enough to brush the tops of Victor’s knees when he sat—he felt constrained under the weight of it. He sighed and started unfolding the tinfoil rolled around his lunch.

Once the covering had been removed, the burrito beneath the foil appeared unremarkable. The tortilla had been wrapped securely, the ingredients all appropriately contained within.

Remembering the method the burrito boy had used to assemble the burrito, Victor picked at the tortilla on one end. He peered inside—a dense blob of guacamole peeked back at him through the tear. He stared at the burrito. If he didn’t want to eat the burrito from end to end, one ingredient at a time, he would need to formulate plan of attack—and quickly, dammit, he was hungry.

Victor unfolded the remaining tinfoil and smoothed it flat against his desk, then curled up the edges of his makeshift plate in order to prevent any food pieces from escaping.

His next step was to initiate burrito deconstruction—he pulled at the tortilla and allowed all the ingredients to topple onto the foil. He ripped the remaining tortilla into bite-sized pieces and scattered them throughout the small pile of food. The only thing preventing him from enjoying his lunch was finding a fork with which to eat his amassed burrito parts.

Rummaging through his desk drawers and briefcase failed to turn up a fork. He realized he would need to leave the relative safety of his desk and venture into the staff room where the probability he would be forced to interact with a co-worker was significantly higher.

He kept his head down and his expression blank as he slipped into the hall outside the room where his cubicle was housed. His strategy was to avoid bumping into co-workers by making himself look stressed and in a hurry to move through the building. When he reached the break room, he peeked around the corner and was relieved to find it empty.

Victor slid open the white particleboard drawer where the extra plastic cutlery was normally stored. A few opened boxes sat inside. He shook one box until glossy white butter knives poured out. He tried the next box only to find plastic knives again. Frustrated, Victor turned to survey the room for any signs of a spare fork, or even a spoon, he could use to eat his lunch. He walked the perimeter, opening drawers and cupboards as he went, but he came away empty handed.

Victor snatched open the first drawer he had tried and took a plastic knife in hand. He figured a utensil that was poorly equipped to get the job done was better than no utensil at all. He walked back to his office with a scowl that was significantly more genuine than the one he had worn during the journey to the break room.

The deconstructed burrito was laid out waiting for him on his desk like the unwanted remains of a decimated carcass after the predator had enjoyed its fill and left the scene of the crime. Victor was to be the late-arriving scavenger forced to pick at the less-savory pieces of the meal.

He plopped into this office chair and glared at the pile of food. He clenched the flimsy plastic knife in his hand. This scenario before him seemed like some sort of sick joke, a taunting reality, a reflection of his current state of unhappiness and helplessness.

Victor’s stomach twisted and his head ached. He hadn’t eaten anything all day; he usually only had a cup or two of coffee in the morning. Despite his famished state, looking at the food in front of him filled him with more feelings of annoyance than hunger. He leaned forward, knife in hand, and thought about the best way to attack the dish.

His mind flashed back to an image of the burrito boy smiling at him from across the glass divider at Chipotle. He had been working so hard during the busy lunch shift, but still he had taken a moment to smile at Victor. He probably only just managed to scrape a living from his meager wages as a food service employee, and here Victor was, sitting at his desk, glaring at the food someone so cute and friendly had made an effort to prepare for him.

Victor turned the knife sideways and used the flat surface to scoop a small amount of rice. Most of the bite fell off before it reached his mouth. He looked down at the collection of rice grains now sitting atop his lap and groaned. He tried again, this time leaning his face over the pile of food as he shoveled it into his mouth. He probably looked like an idiot.

Several minutes into his endeavor to consume what he wanted to believe was a burrito, Victor gave up. Slumping back into his chair, he tossed the plastic knife at a nearby waste bin. The knife bounced off the rim and fell onto the floor of the office. A co-worker wheeled himself to the edge of his cubicle to glance between the knife resting on the floor and Victor, who made no obvious move to retrieve the piece of cutlery.

Victor stared back at the other man, gaze stark. His co-worker raised an eyebrow, but must have thought better than to ask, because a moment later he had slipped back behind the wall of the cubicle and could be heard typing at his keyboard.

Victor glanced at the clock hanging from the wall. He had more than three hours remaining before he would be allowed to escape the office building and return home.

Regrettably, he leaned forward and wadded the foil around the leftover bits of burrito, then tossed it at the trash bin. He watched as the metallic ball thudded into the plastic-lined receptacle—it was the only thing he succeeded at that day.

 

 

Victor slipped a key into the door of his apartment and listened intently—a small thump, followed by the patter of padded feet approaching the entryway, reminded him there was one thing he could always look forward to in life. He turned the knob, and peeked past the door, to find Makkachin panting up at him, tail wagging and bright eyed.

“Makka, good girl!”

Makkachin turned a quick excited circle in place. Victor let his briefcase drop to the floor in front of him, and lowered himself to his knees to allow the poodle to lick his face. He buried his fingers into the dense pile of curls atop her head.

“You wanna go out?”

Makkachin whined and nosed at Victor’s hands.

“Let’s go then.”

The action of reaching for the leash always increased the magnitude of Makkachin’s enthusiasm. Victor clipped the lead into place, and then they were flying out the door and through the hallways of the apartment complex.

Back inside the apartment, Victor switched on the TV and set the volume so it was little more than a soft murmur in the background.

The sun was beginning to set outside, casting hot orange streaks through the sheer curtains on the windows. Victor felt the heat of the light on his skin. He slipped out of his shoes and kicked them towards the door.

The inside of the fridge was sparse—and the textured white plastic was in dire need of a scrub. Victor’s eyes flashed from the various foodstuffs and beverages he had on hand. He was still hungry—he had hardly eaten anything all day—but the options before him were unappealing. He sighed and reached for a beer—the glass bottle was slick and cold against his palm.

He sat with his back to the TV, the wall of the kitchen in front of him flashed with the dim blue and white light of the screen. He popped off the lid from the bottle with the edge of the counter. The first swallow of beer was cold and caloric.

He hit the bottom of his first bottle and stood to retrieve another—surprised at how quickly and strongly the alcohol hit him. He removed two more bottles from the shelf and set them on the counter of the island. _I deserve this_ , he thought.

As he drained the last gulp from his second bottle, a wave of melancholy washed over him. He lowered his head to rest on the cool surface of the island and closed his eyes. He wanted time to stop then—wanted to pretend like he wasn’t about to spend the next two hours drinking. He was tired of his life’s cycle—head to bed drunk, barely manage to scramble from beneath the covers in the morning, trudge into work feeling like someone had hit him in the back of the head with a brick, then sit at a desk counting down the minutes until he could return home and start the whole cycle over again.

A disappointing promotion, a fleeting friendship, a new book—every seemingly joyous thing he managed to stumble across in life would disappear, with time, before his eyes. He didn’t want to feel depressed, didn’t want to feel stagnant, but each attempt he made to put himself into a more positive space failed.

He thought about what he had to look forward to the next day, and his chest ached. He wanted to take off—leave everything behind. He wasn’t brave enough. He had nowhere to run.

Victor pushed himself up from the counter and popped the cap off another beer. He sucked at the neck of the bottle absentmindedly—felt the beer foam up into his mouth. He imagined what his future would be like if he continued moving along the same path, and suddenly he was angry.

He brought the bottle down to the counter. The glass smacked the solid surface and beer sloshed over Victor’s knuckles. He flinched and wiped the wetness against the material of his pants. He needed to push himself harder—do something uncomfortable—step away from the routine.

He thought about what he wanted in life, the things he had dreamed about from a young age, and then glanced around his barren apartment. He saw empty bottles, a flickering television, practically unused furniture, and unwashed dishes crowding the sink. He stood and reached for the remote to turn off the TV. Makkachin’s ears perked at the sound of the screen clicking off—she had learned the sound typically indicated Victor was moving to his bed.

“Not now Makka,” Victor mumbled.

He drained his beer with a few deep gulps, and grabbed the empty bottles to toss into the trash. He moved to the dishes—washing each plate and fork with attention. When he was finished, the apartment seemed to hum with a silent, invigorating, energy. Victor reveled in the fact that his deliberate actions could create a tangible change in the world around him. He made the decision to keep taking action.

 

 

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Victor woke up feeling excited to face the day. He washed and dressed quickly—choosing a light pink shirt to compliment his adventurous mood. On his walk with Makkachin, she bounded around him happily, picking up on her owner’s bright mood.

It was as he stepped onto the subway that his first idea it him. He had left the apartment earlier than usual, and July’s morning air was delightfully cool, so he figured he could get off the subway one stop earlier than his normal point of departure, and walk the remaining distance to work.

As the budding morning sun eased up and over the horizon, gentle rays of light illuminated strands of hair in front of Victor’s eyes. A silent breeze slunk across his skin. He smiled and listened to the songs of far-away birds as they greeted the sun and each other.

He listened to the slide of his shoes against the cement of the sidewalk—smelled the aroma of coffee pouring out from the open doors of cafes. His heart seemed to beat faster, the corner of his mouth tugged upwards into an involuntary smile. He was going to do this—take on the day before him with positivity and grace. He was going to turn his life around.

A flash of yellow—caution tape fluttering in the breeze—caused Victor to halt. The sidewalk before him was taped-off. To his left, cars sped past on a busy road. He wasn’t sure how to proceed.

“Hey,” someone called from above, “you’re going to have to walk along the detour. Sidewalk’s off-limits for the next three blocks.”

Victor looked up—a man was standing on a plywood ledge, secured to the side of the building with a harness. He nodded at the stranger and cupped a hand over his eyes to block out some of the light obscuring his vision.

“Thanks,” Victor called back.

Behind him, and to the right, stood a temporary orange and black sign that read: _DETOUR_ , with an arrow pointing to the side. Victor quickened his pace in the direction indicated by the posting.

A block later, Victor stood at an intersection, looking all around him. The next possible left turn was taped off as well. It was looking as if his detour would take him longer than he could reasonably afford.

He continued moving forward, walking fast enough to build a thin layer of sweat below the collar of his shirt. The morning sun continued to climb in the sky, and its invisible rays pushed the temperature of the air around Victor increasingly higher. One block, two blocks forward, but still the yellow tape and signs urged him to continue forward on the detour.

Victor paused and peaked down an alley partitioned off by the caution tape—he was considering taking a shortcut. The tall buildings shaded the alley, and dumpsters lined both walls. In a moment of boldness Victor ducked beneath the tape.

They alley smelled of spoiled milk. The ground was spotted with shallow puddles, of what Victor hoped, was nothing more than water. He crept forward quietly—feeling as if his environment necessitated stillness and silence.

The end of the alley opened up into a brighter space. Once again he ducked beneath a strip of yellow tape, then stepped into the daylight.

Victor’s right foot slapped against the surface of the sidewalk, only to then sink into wet cement.

He leapt forward, attempting to escape from the mess, only to send his other foot into the oozing substance.

“Fuck, no.”

He scrambled to the edge of the sidewalk and looked down at his ruined shoes. No one had said anything to him—he wanted to get away from the scene of the crime before someone could blame him for the mess he had created.

He wasn’t sure exactly where he was, or how far he was from the office, but a glance at his watch told him he only had ten minutes before he would be late for work. A moment later, he had a map loaded on his phone, and was nearly jogging as he progressed, head down, in the direction of the pin on the screen.

Victor burst through the door of his office building panting, sweaty, and shoes still speckled with drying cement. He walked in the direction of his office, avoiding eye contact with other employees milling around in the hallways. He was only a couple minutes late—nothing he would be reprimanded for, but it still wasn’t the start to the day he had been hoping for.

He settled into his office chair and glanced up to see a coworker smiling at him weakly. Victor mentally assessed the expression that was showing on his own face—pinched brows, and the corners of his mouth turned down into a scowl. He inhaled and forced the muscles in his face and neck to relax. He offered back a small smile—watched as his co-worker glanced back down and disappeared behind the wall of the cubicle.

Victor kicked his briefcase under his desk. He leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. _You can turn this day around_ , he thought to himself. He powered on his office computer and settled into the familiar form of the workday.

Several hours later, Victor’s attention was pulled away from the email in front of him by a coworker walking out the door of the office room. They had a mug in hand—were presumably headed towards the break room to fetch coffee. Victor decided to jump at the opportunity.

He slipped around the corner and into the break room with a smile painted on his face.

“Oh, hey Justine.”

The woman looked up from her cellphone with a grimace-like smile.

“Hi Victor… ah, come for some coffee?”

“Oh… yeah. Nice day, hm?” Victor walked towards the coffee maker. He reached for the pot only to realize he hadn’t brought a mug with him. He swept his hand upward to open the overhead cupboard instead, hoping Justine wouldn’t notice his awkward movements.

The cupboard was empty, save a ripped plastic bag containing a handful of paper plates.

Victor sighed, “Out of mugs.”

“Hmm.”

“I’ll just go get mine then.”

Justine nodded, “Okay.”

Victor rolled his eyes at himself as he hurried back to his desk. By the time he returned to the break room with his mug in hand, Justine had disappeared from the room.

Victor whined quietly to himself, “I was just trying to be friendly….”

The remainder of the day dragged on. Victor choked down a granola bar from a vending machine at lunch. As usual, his eyes flickered to the clock on the wall every few minutes. At 4:57pm Victor began shuffling around, gathering his belongings, and mentally checking out for the day.

Back at home, Victor walked Makkachin quickly—both of them significantly more somber than they had been earlier in the day. Victor was defeated.

Before he could put a stop to the familiar habit, he found himself switching on the television, lowering the volume, and sinking down onto the couch. He could hear the hum of the building’s central air system. He sighed and pulled out his cell to dial for food to be delivered.

Two hours later, he had a stomach full of greasy delivery pizza and more beers than he could count on one hand. He moaned as he shifted himself off the couch, and staggered towards his bedroom. It was looking like his escape from familiar cycles wouldn't be as easy as he had first allowed himself to believe.

 

 

Victor marched into Chipotle for the second time that week. He figured, if he was going to succumb to his old habits anyway, he might as well give into the appeal of spending his money on convenient, and reasonably delicious, Mexican food for lunch.

As usual, the store was swarming with hungry lunch customers. Employees were dashing and sweating like mad in the back. Victor’s eyes were drawn to the form of the burrito boy almost instantly. He was working steadily, face downcast, to assemble orders as fast as he could. Victor licked his lips. He didn’t take his eyes off the burrito boy as he moved to stand in line.

The line seemed to move quickly, or maybe Victor wasn’t as bothered by waiting, so long as he could enjoy the sight of the dark-haired emplyee as he did so. When he was standing a few feet from the counter, the man glanced up. Their eyes met for a brief second and a smile spread across his face.

Victor felt a flicker in the pit of his stomach. A minute later he was once again standing across the glass divider from the burrito boy.

Burrito boy smirked, “Back again so soon.” It wasn’t a question. “Same order?”

Victor cleared his throat. He tugged at the collar around his neck, “Sounds great.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. _He_ _remembered my order—he remembered ME._

The next few moments were a blur to Victor—burrito boy piling ingredients side by side, as he had done with the previous burrito, and Victor too flustered and smitten to bring himself to speak up about the poor craftsmanship of his soon-to-be eight-dollar burrito.

When they reached the end of the line, burrito boy slide the foil-wrapped burrito to the cashier and turned to Victor.

“I don’t believe I caught your name last time.”

The words toppled from his mouth, “It’s Victor—Victor Nikiforov.”

“Nice to meet you Victor. Stop by when it’s less busy sometime?”

A wave of heat washed through Victor’s body and he found himself nodding enthusiastically as he handed his credit card to the irritated-looking employee at the register.

“Bye then,” burrito boy turned to walk back to the head of the counter. His hips swayed as he sauntered away, and Victor reached up to push his bangs away from his perspiring forehead. Before he knew what he was doing, a low whistle escaped from his slightly parted lips. He forced himself to tear his eyes from the sight of the man, snatched his burrito from the counter, and turned to leave the building.

As he stepped through the doors of Chipotle a wave of panic hit Victor—he had forgotten to ask for the burrito boy's name. He glanced back into the store, thinking he could slip back inside and ask quickly, but the sea of swarming customers was an effective deterrent. He sighed and began the walk back to work. 

Back in his office, Victor peeled the foil wrapping from his burrito and bit into one end. His mouth was assaulted by a mushy guacamole-and-tortilla-only bite. It wasn’t pleasant, but in that moment, he hardly cared. His mind was cycling through images of the burrito boy's smirking face, the sway of his hips, the way his lips had formed the syllables of Victor’s name.

He powered through the unsatisfying meal. Savored the bland bites of plain rice, choked his way through the soggy salsa pocket, and crunched mouthful after mouthful of shredded lettuce. The burrito boy's alternative approach to burrito construction was questionable, sure, but at least it was _different_. It threw off Victor’s routine. It was exciting. He couldn’t wait to taste more.

**Author's Note:**

> TBC


End file.
